Getting ahead

Lots to write about with autumn all around. Beautiful day today. Brights skies, crisp leaves, all right, more slushy leaves than crisp ones, but still. Yes, the nights are drawing in, but on days like this, it’s easier to pretend they’re not.

But what was the thing to treasure today? Being five minutes’ ahead of myself, so that I could actually stop, and appreciate it all.

It can get harder to be on time when they’re digging up sections of the road that leads to school, let alone get ahead of yourself, and be early. So it felt particularly good.

Part of the point of this little series, for me, is that they need to be real moments, day by day, not just a list that I’ve concocted. It’s partly a way of making myself stop, for a moment or more, and take in something that pleases me, that quietens things down a bit; or, conversely, something that makes the day sparkle.

We probably all know the verse ‘What is this life, if full of care? // We have no time to stand and stare’. Many days, staring would be some achievement – merely to look up, and clock what’s around you, would be enough. Heads down, we run through our mental lists, contemplate meal options, try and remember whose birthday card to send next, and so on.

One meaning of ‘getting ahead of yourself’ is where you start putting two and two together to make five. You start from a possible idea or theory, and quickly jump to something else – without it necessarily adding up. But today, I liked the idea of getting ahead of my-self – the me that forgets to look up; the me that forgets to notice what is there all the time.

If I can get ahead of myself, my agendas, my task lists, I might arrive at a time and place without activity. One where I’m able to consider the ‘want to dos’ instead of the shoulds, the need tos. Because I do want to look at the trees. I do want to enjoy the view of dogs having a mid afternoon scamper, with a toddler hurtling after them, hat getting in the way, but not too much.

This space, this writing space, is also a place to get ahead of myself – to nip in, start writing, and perhaps be there, putting up the scenery, when my-self walks in. And if I do it fast enough, perhaps I’ll choose to stop and stand there awhile. To be caught up in the story you are writing – now that is getting ahead.